Big Ideas, Big Thinking - Business Post-Covid-19
Let’s not forget we are all human. Humans have emotions and feelings. During this time - BE human. Feel more and relax your own embedded rules.
Is there going to be a new normal for business post-COVID19?
No, not at all.
But for a short period, the real answer is probably yes - kind of!
So what’s happening right now and how do we fix it? ‘Our businesses feel on the edge of closing!’
The nation has been terrified of staying at home. There isn’t a lot we can do about that. Business is desperate to get back to work and do what they all do well.
Although it is good to breathe truly fresh air and look through piercing blue unpolluted skies.
Our reality is we need cash flow, sales and more. If it doesn’t happen … the doors close. This will take a new kind of fluid thinking. Or the discovery of a new kind of thinker!
I’ve been saying this for years. When it comes to business it takes smart thinkers to create results and flow with the change.
Fluid thinkers see change coming.
Fluid thinkers also see way beyond change.
Fluid thinkers also see their way out of change.
It’s just the nature of a fluid thinker. Just like we all have ideas and thoughts but a philosopher has a thought that seems to make perfect sense. That is because his/her mind is fluid with logic.
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A Card Shop Closed
A card and gift shop close by to where I live has just closed. Closed after over forty years. It was a nice, modern shop that sold everything. Apparently, they couldn’t settle the rent issue with the landlord so they closed.
When I looked at that story I did wonder if they are doing the same as a lot of businesses. They are heavily relying on a single source of buyers traffic. That traffic comes from pedestrians on the street into the card shop.
They didn’t sell online unlike other card and gift shops online that have GROWN massively during this COVID19 crisis. This card shop of over forty years closed due to not thinking different whereas online card shops just exploded.
There is a hat shop in Manchester. They have also closed. They have closed after OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS. I buy hats from this shop. They think they have closed due to the virus but they have closed because they don’t sell online. In fact, they never had a website and REFUSED to sell online because they like that personal touch. Not anymore - no more touching on that shop!
I bought a hat during the crisis from San Francisco. With delivery, it cost me just under $400 in total and I love this shop (Goorin Bros.) I have been buying their hats for years after visiting their New York shop on Bleaker Street in 2015 when I got married. I now have around a dozen of their $400 hats!. They still have an amazing personal touch - ONLINE!
If you don’t have multiple traffic sources and utilise smart, clever, different ways to attract buyers in 2020 and beyond and are over-reliant on one source - you will face a real future danger of closure. It is estimated 25% of businesses will fold post COVID19. I reckon it’ll be much much higher.
The Big Problem Being Online Only
The next big issue of course is if we are online is getting enough traffic to our website. This is a nightmare for almost all of my clients when we first meet. They have already spent a ton on traffic and traffic sources from SEO to just about every other online way of getting buyers. Usually with poor results.
Yet it doesn’t have to be. Two things will happen online; Traffic will either climb naturally through search during times like this or you won’t be found at all. SEO these days is as good as impossible and digital media or social media agencies mostly fail to deliver more sales (in my experience working with my clients.)
NOTE: If you take the SEO route you MUST EMPLOY a full-time team. Playing around with SEO yourself once a year will do zero! It is a job for an expert.
Traffic is Good Conversion Isn’t Good
And thirdly if we do get people to visit our website through our online ads we have to convert those visitors into buyers. Do you know what average conversion numbers are for average businesses?
LOW … One buyer for every 400 visitors! A real problem right!
This is incredible; I spoke to a company that had invested over half a million into their new motorbike and accessories website. They were also spending around £400,000 per month on traffic. Visitors were arriving and visitors were leaving without buying. In other words - zero conversions. Crazy right?
Now we have this new normal engrained fear post COVID19.
Fear of human contact, fear of walking down the street. Fear of leaving the house. Fear of breathing the same air that someone else has breathed. It’s real.
Once we start to come out of the coronavirus pandemic we will have other issues.
After World War One a lot of authorities were given notice to relax laws on drinking, partying and other human activities. They understood the people and been through a lot of mental torment. They also realised that if they piled on more restrictions this could lead to the people revolting. They wanted and deserved their freedom or their humanity after years of a degrading human experience. What we’ve been through is nothing in comparison but it still leaves that stain.
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Remove Layers and Fixations
Your previous rules and fixations might not now work. You must treat your buyers like human beings. No one wants to come out of this pandemic and then be layered with more layers of demanding rules and regulations.
In other words…
This is going to take a different type of thinker to create a different type of result for your more successful future.
Old Thinking Probably Won’t Work
Those that have been creating your marketing or advising your strategies for years probably won’t get you out off this. Why?
Think about this.
You might say, own a supermarket.
That supermarket has been having 500 buyers pass through its door every 5-minutes.
Now with new social distancing restrictions, they are allowing just ONE PERSON per minute into the supermarket.
That is a huge shortfall of regular customers.
So customers order online and get a delivery.
This is a problem if you’ve tried ordering. Not enough drivers. More drivers need more vans. More drivers push up the wages bill. So the supermarket has more sales but actually has reduced in profits.
Just boosting social media posts isn’t going to cut it. You will need a new voice that is tuned into the mind of the buyers because their minds have now changed.
Like I say this needs a different type of thinker to get a different type of result.
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So what are you going to do?
There are many, and I say many as in, most that are sitting in their business and waiting for something to happen. The thing they want is the opening to re-start and then things will be back to normal.
That isn’t going to happen.
In my town, there is a coffee shop that is still open whilst ALL of the others are closed. They are making back-to-back coffee from morning until night.
SMART guys but … they sent out a message that suddenly says, all coffee must be pre-booked at a pre-booked time and pre-ordered or you won’t be able to get your coffee.
I won’t be going. I usually go and just wait in line. I love going. It feels good to do something normal. Now I am not going. I have had enough of restrictions and rules. For me, they just killed it. Crazy!
The Mind Has Been Changed
The real issue is no one has given any thought to the mindset that has now been created in this crisis.
The mind of your buyer has been through a powerful mental shift.
That mind shift has created a fear-driven process in thinking they are now thinking differently about how they do things
That thinking process is also based on what is now best for the family or individual (not for you or your business).
What was important before is less important now or certainly looked at very different.
But they still want your product.
Customers easily and soon forget and they might have forgotten about you.
Unique issues you will face and they are facing will make it tougher to come back but easy to decide where to go.
Cash will be tight initially especially if they have been furloughed.
They will look for a similar quality of product at a lower rate.
They will still be worried about contamination in a warm damp salon atmosphere.
They will be desperate but cautious about getting back to normal (they might wait a few weeks after lockdown to visit).
Different Is Now Critical
The only way to approach this is by thinking in a different kind of way.
If we are offline this is a time to go online also.
If we are just online this is also a time to go offline.
If we are using one traffic source whether it be the street of google we need to think differently about our traffic sources.
As an example, I sell products online and have done since the late 90s.
Most companies try and sell their products from their website.
I thought about this very carefully and came to the conclusion that mindset is a little like HEINZ trying to sell beans to each and every passer-by themselves on the street or door to door. They obviously don’t do that and they clearly don’t sell from their website.
I sell my products online ANYWHERE I can get the right traffic. Obvious right, but most don’t do that.
Just posting endlessly on Instagram or Facebook won’t help a business recover fast enough. Just using GoogleAds or other online ad placements won’t be enough.
This is going to take a monumental moment in the life of your business that takes your company thinking in a new direction.
Are your thinkers giving you enough new thoughts - BIG IDEAS?
Are your ideas big enough ideas?
Do you have the ability to weather any new storm and recover from this storm?
This virus will pass but it has left undeniable scars.
If we don’t think different and come back, the same old everything will not be the same but will actually be less.
It will take a new approach and a set of different thoughts.
Ideas will have to come thick and fast until you have that one big idea.
This is the only way you will come back to the new normal until normal returns.
This is the only way you will arrive back with a huge impact and a different way of doing things.
I have built my three-decade reputation doing things differently. For my clients (as you can read anywhere on this website) that has brought in some very interesting results. Results are so different that they are usually seen as unbelievable.
And don’t forget.
We are all human. We are all truly connected. This is a time to be smart, think different but also be kind. Give your buyers what they need right now. That will take a different conversation and a new approach to your strategy.
You will need a different mind to get different results.
I am ready to work with just one or two clients for as long as it takes to get your result.
Is that you?
Should we talk?
Alan Forrest Smith
Message Me To Book Your Zoom Consultation. Get Me Here Now /// WhatsApp /// Messenger /// Telegram: +44779306486